1. John Branca is co-executor of the Estate of Michael Jackson.
28 Facts About John Branca
2.
John Branca moved to Los Angeles when Branca was four to pursue her show business career.
3.
John Branca is portrayed in the Jackie Robinson biopic 42 as one of Robinson's earliest supporters.
4.
At age 11, John Branca moved to LA, and at 13, started a rock band, The Other Half, for which he played guitar.
5.
John Branca majored in music at Los Angeles City College before transferring to Occidental College.
6.
John Branca realized that this field of law was his true calling.
7.
John Branca was hired by Jackson after he fired his father Joseph Jackson as his career manager.
8.
John Branca was instrumental in the production and release of Michael Jackson's Thriller short film.
9.
John Branca helped Jackson purchase ATV Music Publishing in 1985 for $47,500,000.
10.
Additionally, John Branca requested a 5 percent interest in the Beatles catalog.
11.
In 1995, John Branca proposed a merger of Sony's music publishing operations and ATV, resulting in Jackson becoming a significant owner of a larger company and receiving $150 million from Sony.
12.
John Branca received 5 percent of this, amounting to $7.5 million.
13.
In 2003, Jackson fired John Branca based on a private investigation on behalf of him suggesting the flow of funds from Jackson through Sony Music CEO Tommy Mottola and John Branca into offshore accounts in the Caribbean.
14.
John Branca reached out to Randy Phillips expressing interest in rejoining Jackson's team shortly after Jackson concluded the press conference for This Is It in early March 2009.
15.
John Branca filed the will in Los Angeles on July 1,2009, and was appointed co-executor.
16.
John Branca said HBO has been trying to suppress the other side of the story.
17.
In 1991, John Branca put together what's considered rock's first mega-deal, a four-album deal for Aerosmith with Sony, estimated to be worth $50 million.
18.
In 2005, John Branca brokered a ground-breaking 360 deal between Korn and EMI, which made EMI a partner in all of Korn's operations.
19.
In 1985, John Branca facilitated one of the most famous music publishing deals in history, the purchase of ATV Music Publishing for Michael Jackson.
20.
In 2008, changes in the tax law that allowed songwriters to pay a small capital gains tax instead of a larger income tax prompted John Branca to advise some of his clients that this was the perfect time to sell their music publishing catalogs, thereby establishing new precedents in valuation.
21.
John Branca sold Berry Gordy's Jobete Music to EMI, which changed the method and standard by which catalogs were valued.
22.
John Branca has a daughter from his first marriage and two sons from his second.
23.
In 2019, John Branca married for the third time to model and actress Jenna Hurt.
24.
John Branca helped Buddy Arnold form the Musicians Assistance Program, which later merged with MusiCares, which provides help to members of the music industry who need treatment for drug and alcohol addiction, as well as assistance for other financial, medical and personal crises.
25.
John Branca is a member of the Advisory Council for the Barack Obama Scholars Program at Occidental College.
26.
John Branca is a Distinguished Alumni of Los Angeles City College.
27.
John Branca co-founded Club 42, an integrated youth baseball league honoring Jackie Robinson, a teammate and friend of Branca's uncle, Ralph, on the Brooklyn Dodgers, and Branca serves as a director of the Jackie Robinson Foundation.
28.
In 2020, John Branca was named to the Inaugural Board of Advisors for the Dean of the Herb Albert School of Music at UCLA.